


Wager

by todisturbtheuniverse



Series: Into the Storm and Rout [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, No Spoilers, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 14:39:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3176283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iron Bull decides to mess with Trevelyan—just a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wager

Watching Trevelyan and Vivienne spar is like...shit.

Bull doesn't have a good word for it. He's not sure there  _is_ a good word. Even Cassandra and Cullen keep glancing over to the battle, interested in spite of their duties. Vivienne is obviously a talented mage, and Trevelyan, though younger and less experienced, has a certain scrappiness that really works for her. Where Vivienne is all proper form, Trevelyan is willing to get her hands dirty.

They wield different kinds of magic. He'd be lying if he said either kind made him  _comfortable_ , exactly, but the sizzle of Trevelyan's lightning is...impressive. There are little bursts where it meets Vivienne's ice in midair; no matter what stage she is in casting, there are sparks on her hands, her staff, her hair. It doesn't ever fry  _her_ , somehow.

It takes a good ten minutes for Vivienne to finally get a shot in past Trevelyan's barrier; the thing sparks like gaatlok when it dies, a last defense, but Vivienne is too far away for it to have any effect. Trevelyan coughs through the ice in her chest. "I yield," she croaks.

It's their third round today, and Trevelyan has lost every one of them, though not for lack of trying or skill. She's simply outmatched.

Vivienne laughs, waving a hand, and Trevelyan doubles over, coughing and thumping her chest to shake the last of the cold loose. "Ostwick still produces capable mages," Vivienne says. Bull has never really heard approval in her voice before, but it's there now, warm and friendly. "Whoever instructed you in Storm magic?"

"Lydia suggested it." Trevelyan brushes the ice from her coat. "I had to learn from another Enchanter—it wasn't her forte—but she thought it suited me best."

"She was right, of course." Vivienne touches her shoulder as she passes. "Until next time, my dear."

Trevelyan chuckles, but Bull sees the brief flash of pride on her face before she ducks her head, tending to the sparks lingering in her hair. Gloves off, she takes her hair out of its usual bun and runs her hands through the length, gathering lightning as she goes. The static leaves her hair in the wake of her fingers.

"Mages," Krem mutters, watching. "You know that lightning's not friendly to anyone else."

She makes a fist; when she ties her hair back up, the sparks are gone. She rubs at her sternum when she's done, wincing, and catches Bull's eye.

Right on cue, she blushes. He doesn't think much of it; she goes red talking to just about everyone. She wasn't exactly the center of attention in Ostwick, and she dislikes being in that position now. As much as she hates camping, she still prefers to be anywhere but Haven.

"Krem has a question," he calls, taking pity on her. Once she gets talking, she forgets her embarrassment. It's always the first minute or so that she struggles with.

The blush is already fading. She pulls her gloves back on as she approaches them; he spots the green glimmer of her mark.

"Yes?" she asks, her gaze turning to his lieutenant.

Krem clears his throat, shooting a sideways glare at Bull. "It was an idle comment."

"Hey, I want to know, too." Bull shifts the weight off his aching ankle; her eyes drift, considering, to the brace. "Sort of."

Krem rolls his eyes, but asks the question, anyway. "How is it your lightning never hurts you?"

"Oh." She frowns. "It does." At Krem's pained wince, she hurries on. "Just not very much, I mean. It's like touching a doorknob and getting shocked. I've developed a sort of tolerance. I hardly notice it anymore—I've been practicing for almost ten years."

"Vivienne seems impressed," Bull comments.

She smiles—shyly, embarrassed, but pleased. "Even though she trounced me."

"It wasn't a trouncing. Maybe just a beating."

She chuckles. "Ah. I'm lucky I have someone to properly categorize my losses. And stand in front of me on the field, so that I don't get beaten when it matters."

"Don't know how you see anything from behind him," Krem mutters. "Don't know how  _anyone_ does."

She goes a bit pink at that, eyes darting to Bull's chest and then away again. "I...uhm...I don't have to, strictly speaking."

"Don't tell me you stand back there with your eyes closed, throwing that lightning around," Bull warns. "If you do, I don't want to know."

"I mean, I don't. I could—but I don't," she reassures. "I kind of...feel...my targets. They're big anomalies on an otherwise even surface—the ground."

He knows what she means, but poking her a little couldn't hurt. " _I'm_ an anomaly," he points out.

"Well, yes, but how often do we fight other people who are _your_ height and have horns?" she demands, exasperated.

Krem snorts. Bull ignores him.

"What about Cassandra, then?" he presses. "She's roughly the same size as other people we run into."

She huffs. "It's hard to explain. You feel...different. It's an energy thing."

"Uh-huh." He folds his arms over his chest.

"Look, do you want to test it?" She mirrors his posture, but it's more defensive than unyielding. "We can blindfold me and see what happens. I wouldn't want you to be worrying about this on the field. Someone might sneak by you and cut me to pieces."

Krem coughs to cover his laughter. "I think it's a good idea, Chief," he manages.

"We don't exactly keep spare bad guys lying around. Bad for business."

"We can use practice dummies." The flush on her face is entirely different now: the product of offense and determination and maybe a bit of anger, rather than embarrassment.

"A burlap sack stuffed with straw doesn't seem much like a person," he grunts.

"It'll prove I can differentiate. If I miss, drinks are on me."

For a moment, she glares at him and he looks back, considering how far he wants to push her. Krem watches the whole thing, clearly struggling to keep a straight face.

"Fine," he says at last.

"Good," she replies. "I'll get Cassandra to help set up."

She marches off, coat swishing behind her.

"I think you pissed her off," Krem says, grinning.

"Yeah." Bull watches her go. "Kinda suits her, though."

* * *

Cassandra—who has a good grasp on how magic works, even if she doesn't wield it herself—doesn't argue with this plan.

"If she's going to hit anyone, it will be you, not me," she says, very matter-of-factly. "And it will be on purpose." She wiggles the practice dummy; it doesn't budge.

"I need a third," Trevelyan calls. "Usual number of allies."

Krem waves from where he's hammering another practice dummy into the ground. "I'll help."

Their shouting—and perhaps the rearranging of his army of dummies—attracts Cullen's attention. He approaches with a frown, leaving his soldiers to their drills.

"What's going on?" he asks. Trevelyan ignores him, turning to Bull instead.

"That's enough, right?" She gestures to the half-dozen practice dummies gathered in the snow, raising an eyebrow at him for approval.

He grunts.

"Good." She pulls her scarf from her neck. "I'll put this on, and then you all arrange yourselves between the dummies."

Cullen looks between the dummies and Trevelyan, realization dawning. "Perhaps this isn't—"

"No," Bull interrupts, ignoring him, too.

She shoots him another glare. Yeah, being pissed off _really_ suits her. "What now?"

He leaves the field of dummies and takes the scarf from her hands. "If you do it yourself, you might leave an opening to see through."

She rolls her eyes. "You don't trust me at all, do you? How is it you've found the courage to stand in front of me for a bloody  _month_ now?"

He doesn't answer that. If she hasn't worked out that he's winding her up yet, she will eventually—and yeah, he might want to see if she's as good as she claims. He moves behind her and tightens the scarf over her eyes.

Her breath catches.

He hears it—the sharp hiss, the click of her throat. Mere centimeters from his fingers, her ears turn very, very red.

He hasn't read into her blushes before, but he can read that one well enough. Interesting.

He taps her shoulder; she's tense beneath her coat, muscles taut. "Cullen will tell you when we're ready," he tells her. Cullen gives a reluctant nod. "Wouldn't want you to gauge our positions based on  _us_ calling out."

She sputters, and he leaves her, grinning. Cullen waits for the three of them to find places amidst the practice dummies, then says, "They're ready for you."

She hardly waits for the first syllable to close; she swings her staff, narrowly missing their commander. The bolt hits the dummy to Krem's right. To his credit, he doesn't flinch. The next hits the target to his left. Both of them fall.

She whirls her staff around again, mouth pressed into a grim line beneath her blindfold. The dummies to the left and in front of Cassandra smoke faintly, scorch marks in the shape of spiderwebs burned into the burlap. She slams her staff to the ground, and the dummy in front of Bull drops from its post in defeat. She hefts her staff in the air, twirls—the lightning arcs around it—and slams it to the ground again; the post of the dummy only a pace behind him splits in two.

The whole thing takes barely ten seconds. For a moment, they're all silent. She pulls the scarf from her eyes, grinning triumphantly. Krem looks a peculiar combination of awed, aroused, and terrified; Cassandra's expression hasn't changed at all; and Cullen sighs, as though perfectly aware that he'll have to repair the dummies himself.

"Satisfied?" she challenges.

Bull considers the defiant set of her jaw, the lift of her chin, the way she's squared her shoulders. Victory suits her, too.

"Drinks are on me," he agrees.

* * *

The tavern's crowded; the only open spots are at the end of the bar. She's quiet for the first round, watching Flissa serve rather than talking to him. He lets her simmer and enjoys his drink. She'll talk eventually, when she gets up the courage.

Halfway through her second pint, she speaks. "Is this going to be a problem, then?"

She's still not looking at him; her eyes follow Flissa, currently pulling down a bottle from the top shelf.

 _Game's over_ , he decides, and nudges her shoulder. "I was messing with you, boss."

It surprises her enough that she meets his gaze. "You were  _what_?"

He takes a gulp of his drink. "Sure, I was curious whether you  _could_ actually do it blind, but yeah. I was messing with you."

For a moment, she looks angry again—but then her lips twitch, as though she can't hold onto it. "You  _ass_ ," she says, her voice quivering with mirth.

He inclines his head, chuckling. "Sometimes, yeah."

"So you're not afraid of mages at all? I thought qunari…" She trails off.

"They tossed you to the demons in the Circle, right?"

She frowns. "That's one way to put it. But, yes. I passed my Harrowing when I was sixteen."

"Then I'd only be afraid of you if we were on opposite sides of the field—and, honestly, probably not even then. That thing you do with lightning is badass, though."

She ducks her head, smiling. "Good," she stammers. "I mean—thanks." Her blush blooms all the way down her neck; offhandedly, he wonders how much lower it goes. "I'm, uh, glad you think so."

As though to shut herself up, she takes a hurried gulp of her drink and chokes. When she's finished sputtering, she pushes back from the bar, mutters something about a war council meeting, and flees.

"She's hopeless," Sera declares, dropping into Trevelyan's vacated seat and picking up her abandoned drink. "I mean she glows, right, but you can't say anything to her without embarrassing her."

"Nah." He waves Flissa over to refill his drink, smiling. "She's doing alright."


End file.
